Book 2

Hither too has come the fame of Caesar's triumph, where the languid breeze of the weary South wind scarcely comes. I thought nothing would be sweet to me in the Scythian region: now this place is less hateful than it was before. At last, the cloud of cares driven off, I saw some clear sky, and gave the lie to my own fortune. Though Caesar should be unwilling that any joys fall to me, yet he can wish this one thing to be granted to anyone. The gods too, that they may be worshipped by all with cheerful piety, bid sadness be laid aside through their festivals. In short—and it is sheer madness to dare to confess it— I shall enjoy this gladness, though he himself forbid it. As often as Jupiter aids the fields with useful showers, the clinging burr is wont to grow mingled with the crop. We too, a useless weed, feel the fruit-bearing deity, and are often helped by aid we did not seek. The joys of Caesar's mind are mine in my manly portion: that house has nothing private about it. Thanks to you, Rumour, through whom the pageant of the triumph, beheld, was mine, shut in among the Getae. With you as informer I learned that lately the countless nations had come together to be seen at the face of their leader! And that Rome, which holds the boundless world within her vast walls, scarcely had room for her guests. You told me that, when for many days before the cloudy South wind had poured down constant rains, by heaven's deity the sun shone clear, the day matching the people's countenance, and that thus the victor, with the honour of a great voice, gave the gifts of war to the praised men, and, about to take up the embroidered robes, bright insignia, first laid incense upon the holy hearths, and chastely appeased the justice of his own father, who has always a temple in that breast, and that, wherever the fortunate one went, the omen was joined to applause, and the stones blushed with sprinkled roses; straightway there were images in silver imitating overthrown walls, barbarian towns carried along with painted men, and rivers and mountains and battles in deep woods, and arms mingled with their own weapons in a heap, and from the gold of trophies, which the sun set ablaze, the roofs of the Roman Forum were golden, and that so many leaders bore chains added to their captive necks, almost as many as had been enough to be enemies. The greatest part of these gained life and pardon, among them too Bato, the sum and head of the war. Why should I deny that the deity's anger toward me can be lessened, when I see that the gods are mild to enemies? This same report has brought to us, Germanicus, that towns went under the title of your name. And that against you neither by mass of wall nor by arms nor enough by the cunning of the place were they safe. May the gods grant you years, for you will get the rest from yourself, let there be only long time for your valour. What I pray will come to pass: the oracles of bards are something: for the god has given favourable signs to one who prays, You too as victor Rome shall joyfully behold mounting the Tarpeian heights with garlanded horses; and a father shall watch the ripe honours of his son, receiving the joys which he himself gave to his own. Even now mark these words spoken to you by me, prophesying, greatest of young men in war and in the toga. This triumph too perhaps I shall record in poems, if only life suffice for my ills, if I do not myself first steep the Scythian arrows, and the fierce Getan carry off this head with his sword. And if your laurel be given to the temples while I am safe, you will say that twice my omens have been true.

He who from his first years has been a worshipper of your house, Naso, driven to the left shore of the Euxine sea, sends from the untamed Getae this greeting, Messalinus, which, present, he was wont to bring you. Ah me, if your face, on reading the name, is not what it was, and you hesitate to read the rest through! Read it through, and do not banish my words along with me: my verses may be in your city, though I may not. I did not, had Ossa borne Pelion, conceive that the bright stars could be touched by my hand, nor did we, following the mad camp of Enceladus, move arms against the gods, the lords of all things, nor, as the rash hand of the son of Tydeus did, were any deities assailed by my weapons. My fault is grievous, but one which dared to ruin me alone, and undertook no greater impiety. I can be called nothing but unwise and timid: these two are the true names of my mind. That I have deserved, after Caesar's anger, to find you too, by right, hard to my prayers, I confess; and such is your piety toward the whole name of Iulus, that you think yourself wounded when anyone is wounded thereby, But though you bear arms and threaten savage wounds, yet you will not make me fear you. The Trojan ship took in the Greek Achaemenides, and the Pelian spear helped the Mysian leader. Sometimes the violator of a temple flees to its altar, and does not shudder to seek the help of the offended deity. Someone may say that this is not safe. I admit it. But my ship does not go through calm waters, let others seek safe things: most wretched fortune is safe, for the fear of a worse outcome is absent, he who is swept away by the foaming brine, stretching out his arms, holds out his hands toward thorns and hard rocks, and the bird, fearing the hawk, with trembling wings dares, wearied, to come to human bosoms, nor does the hind, fleeing in terror from the hostile hounds, hesitate to trust herself to a neighbouring roof, Grant access, I pray, most gentle one, to my tears, and do not bar the rigid door against my timid words, and carry my words, favouring, to the Roman deities, worshipped by you no less than the Thunderer of the Tarpeian rock, and, as envoy of my charge, take up the cause: though no cause is good that goes by my name. Already near laid out, surely now cold and sick, I shall, saved through you—if only I am saved—be safe. Now let your favour, which the eternal prince's love grants you, strive on behalf of my weary affairs. Now let that home-bred brightness of your eloquence be with you, by which you could be of use to trembling defendants. For your eloquent father's tongue lives on in you, and that gift has found its heir. This I implore, not that it try to defend me; the cause of a confessed defendant must not be guarded. But whether you should excuse my deed by the origin of error, or whether it profit nothing to stir such a thing, see. It is the kind of wound which, since it is not curable, I think it is safer not to handle. Tongue, be silent! There is nothing further to be told. I would wish I could bury my own ashes myself. So, then, as if no error had deceived me, speak your words, that I may enjoy the life he himself gave; and when he is serene and has relaxed those features which move the lands and the empire along with themselves, beg that he not let me be a small prey to the Getae, and that he grant a gentle soil to my wretched flight. The time suits prayers: he is strong, and sees what strength, Rome, he has made yours. His consort, safe, keeps her marriage couch; his son advances the Ausonian empire; Germanicus himself surpasses his years in spirit, nor is the vigour of Drusus less than his nobility, add that the dutiful daughters and granddaughters and the sons of grandsons and the other members of the Augustan house are well; add the Paeonians lately triumphed over, add to quiet the arms of mountainous Dalmatia subdued. Nor did Illyria, her arms cast away, disdain to bear Caesar's foot on her servile head, he himself, conspicuous above the chariot with calm face, bore his temples bound with the Phoebean maiden. Him, as he went, your dutiful offspring accompanied, worthy of their parent and of the names bestowed, like the brothers whom, holding the neighbouring temple, the deified Julius sees from his lofty shrine. To these Messalinus does not deny the first place of his gladness, to whom all things must yield, whatever is left over from these comes into the contest of love: in this part he will be second to no man. He will honour this day before that on which, as decreed to the deserving, the laurel comes worthy of honoured locks. Happy those who, oh, were allowed to behold the triumphs and to enjoy the gods in the face of a leader who equals them! But for me, instead of Caesar's face, there are Sarmatians to see and a land destitute of peace and water bound with ice. If, however, you hear these things and my voice reaches there, let your favour be coaxing toward changing my place. This that father of yours, cultivated by me from earliest youth, asks, if an eloquent shade has any feeling. This your brother asks too, though perhaps he fears lest the care of saving me harm you. The whole house asks this, nor can you yourself deny that I too was a part of your throng. At least of my talent, which I felt I used ill, the Art of Love excepted, you were often an approver. Nor can my life, if you take away only the latest sins, be shameful to your house. So, then, may the inner shrines of your race flourish, and may you be a care to the gods above and to the Caesars. Worship that deity, mild, but justly angry with me, that he may take me from the savagery of the Scythian place. It is hard, I confess, but valour strives toward steep things, and the gratitude for such a service will be greater. Yet it is not the Aetnaean Polyphemus in his vast cave, nor Antiphates, who will receive your words, but a calm and easy father, ready to pardon, and one who often thunders without the lightning's fire, who, when he has decreed something sad, becomes sad himself, and for whom to inflict punishment is almost his own punishment. Yet his clemency was conquered by my fault, and his anger, forced to it, came to its full strength. And since I am removed from my country by the whole world's width, and may not fall prostrate before the very gods, carry these charges, as priest, to the powers above whom you worship, but add your own prayers too to my words. Yet make this attempt only if you think it will not harm. You will be pardoned. Shipwrecked, I fear every sea.

Maximus, you who match your name by your bright virtues, and do not let your talent be crushed by your nobility, honoured by me—for how does this state differ from death, to the very last moment of my life— you do a thing, not turning away from a friend in rough garb, than which none is rarer in your age. It is shameful to say, but, if only we confess the truth, the common crowd approves friendships by their usefulness, the care of what is profitable comes before what is honourable, and faith stands and falls with fortune. Nor would you easily find, among many thousands, one who thinks virtue is its own reward. Right action's very beauty, if rewards are lacking, does not move them, and to be honest for nothing is regretted. Nothing is dear unless it profits: but take from the greedy mind the hope of fruit, and no one will be worth seeking. But now each man loves his own returns, and what may be useful to him he reckons up on anxious fingers. That once venerable deity of friendship is on sale, and sits for hire like a harlot, the more I marvel that you too are not drawn, as by rushing waters, into the corruption of the common vice, no one is loved unless his fortune is favourable: which, as soon as it thunders, puts all those nearest to flight. Behold me, once fenced about by not a few friends, while a favourable breeze blew on my sails, when the wild seas swelled with the cloudy wind, I am left in the midst of the waters with a shattered ship, and though others were unwilling even to seem to know me, scarcely two or three of you brought help to me, cast away. Of whom you are the chief, for you were worthy to be not a follower, but a leader, not to seek an example, but to give one. You, confessing that I had committed nothing exactly save error, your probity and sense of duty aid of their own accord. With you as judge, virtue lacks reward and is to be sought for itself, unaccompanied by external goods, you think it shameful to drive off a friend because he is to be pitied, and that, because he is unhappy, he should cease to be yours. It is gentler to put a finger beneath the weary man's chin than to plunge the swimmer's face into the flowing waters. See what the grandson of Aeacus rendered to his friend after death: and reckon that this life of mine is like death. Theseus accompanied Pirithous to the Stygian waves: how far is my death from the Stygian water? The young Phocean stood by the mad Orestes: and my fault has no small share of madness, You too admit the praises of great men, as you do, and bring what help you can to the fallen. If I know you well, if you are now too what you used to be before, and your spirits have not fallen, the more Fortune rages, the more you yourself resist, and, as is fitting, you take care that she not conquer you; and, that you may fight well, the enemy, by fighting well, makes you do so. So the same cause both profits and harms me. No doubt, dearest of young men, you count it unworthy to be made a companion of the goddess that stands upon the world. You are firm, and since they are not such as you would wish, you steer the sails, whatever they are, of a shattered craft, and the ruin, which was so shaken that it is thought now about to fall, still remains, propped up by your shoulders. Your anger indeed at first had been just, nor milder than his who was offended at me by right. And whatever grief had touched the heart of high Caesar, you swore at once that it was your own. Yet when the origin of my disaster was heard by you, you are said to have groaned at my errors. Then first your letter began to console me and to give hope that the wounded god could be bent. Then the constancy of our long friendship moved you, which had begun for me before your birth, and that you were made others' friend, but born mine, and that I gave you in your cradle the first kisses. And since your house has been honoured by me always from tender years, it forces me to be an old burden to you. That father of yours, the eloquence of the Latin tongue, which was not inferior to his nobility, first urged me to dare to entrust my poems to fame: he was the leader of my talent. Nor do I claim that your brother could recall from what time he was first honoured by me. Yet you above all I have so embraced, that you alone in whatever chance were our chief favour, Aethalian Ilva last saw you with me, and received the tears falling from my cheeks in sorrow: when, as you asked whether the report was true which the evil rumour of my fault had brought, between confessing doubtfully and doubtfully denying, I hung, giving frightened signs out of fear, and like the snow which the watery South wind melts, the rising drop went down my stunned cheeks. Recalling these things, then, and seeing that my offences can lie hidden by the pardon of a first error, you look back on an old friend in his weary affairs, and aid my wounds with your soothing remedies. For which, if a chance of wishing be granted me, I would pray a thousand blessings on one who has deserved so well. But if your prayers alone be granted me, I shall pray that, Caesar being safe, your mother be safe for you. These things, when you made the altars rich with incense, I remember you were wont to ask of the gods first.

Receive a conversation from Naso by the icy Hister, Atticus, not to be doubted in my judgment. Do you still remain mindful of your unhappy friend, or does your care, grown languid, desert its part? The gods are not so harsh to me that I could believe, or think it right, that you no longer remember me. Your image is always set before my eyes, and I seem to see your face in my mind. I recall many serious things shared with you, and not a few hours given to pleasant jests, often the hours, swift in long talk, seemed long, often the day was shorter than my words. Often a poem, just made, came to your ears and a new Muse was submitted to your judgment. What you had praised, I thought had pleased the people. This was the sweet reward of my guiding care. And that my book might be polished smooth by a friend's file, more than once an erasure was made at your prompting. The forums saw us together, every portico, the street, the curved theatres with their joined seats, in short, our love, dearest one, was always as great as was between the son of Aeacus and the son of Nestor. I would not, even if you drank cups of careless Lethe, believe that these things could fall from your breast. The long day will sooner come at the winter star, and the night, slower in winter, will be at the solstice, neither will Babylon have cold, nor the Pontus heat, and the marigold will conquer the Paestan roses in scent, sooner than forgetfulness of my affairs come over you. The white part of my fate is not so wholly null. Yet, lest this confidence can be called false and my belief foolish, take care, and with constant faith protect an old comrade, as far as is allowed and as much as I shall not be burdensome.

Verses set in unequal numbers I, Naso, send to my Salanus, the greeting placed before them. That it may be ratified I desire, and that the omen approve it by the event, I pray you may, friend, be able to read it while safe. Your candour, in this age a thing almost dead, demands that I make such vows. For though I was joined to you by but moderate acquaintance, you are said to have grieved at my exile, and when you read the poems sent from the Euxine Pontus, your favour, such as they were, helped them; and you wished Caesar's anger toward me to be soon undone, which, if he knew, he himself would allow to be wished, You gave such mild vows in keeping with your character, nor are they on that account less welcome to me. And that you may be the more moved by my ills, most learned man, it is likely from the condition of the place, you will hardly find, believe me, in this whole world a soil that enjoys less of the Augustan peace, yet you both read the verses I build amid fierce battles, and approve them, when read, with a favouring mouth, and you applaud my talent, which flows from a poor vein, and from a brook make great rivers, welcome indeed to my mind are these votes, though you would think the wretched can scarcely please even themselves, yet while I try poems on slight subjects, my talent suffices for the slender matter, lately, as the fame of the great triumph reached here, I dared to undertake a work of so great a mass. The weight and the splendour of the theme overwhelmed me in my daring, nor could I bear the burdens of what I had begun. There the goodwill you might praise will be dutiful: the rest lie weakened by the matter, and if that book by chance reaches your ears, let it feel your guardianship, I entrust to it. Since you will do this, even were I not myself to ask, let my gratitude be added as a slight increase, I am not to be praised, but your heart is, whiter than milk and untrodden snow: and you marvel at others, when you are yourself a marvel, nor are your arts and eloquence hidden. The prince of youth, to whom Germany gives a name, Caesar is wont to have as a sharer of his study. You, an old companion, joined to him from his first years, please him, your character matching your talent. With you speaking first, his impulse straightway comes: and he has you to draw out his own words by yours. When you have ceased and mortal mouths have grown quiet, and the roofs have held them, with no long delay, there rises the young man worthy of the name of Iulus, like Lucifer risen from the eastern waters. And while he stands silent, his bearing and face are eloquent, and his becoming dress has the promise of a learned voice, soon, when the delay is broken and the heavenly mouth opened, you would swear the gods above are wont to speak in this manner, and you would say 'this is eloquence worthy of a prince, so much nobility is in his speech.' Though you please this man and touch the stars with your head, you think the writings of a fugitive bard worth having, no doubt there is some concord between talents joined, and each keeps the covenants of his own pursuit: the rustic loves the farmer, the soldier him who wages fierce wars, the sailor the steersman of the doubtful ship. You too, devoted one, are held by devotion to the Muses, and you favour, gifted one, my gift. Our work differs, but it issues from the same springs: each of us is a cultivator of a liberal art, the thyrsus is absent from you, the laurel I have tasted, but yet there must be warmth in both: and as your eloquence gives sinews to my numbers, so brightness comes from us into your words. Rightly, then, you think that poems bordering on your pursuit and the sacred bonds of fellow-service must be protected. For which, that the friend by whom you are judged may remain, I pray together for him to the last moments of your life. And may the world's ruler succeed to his own reins: this same thing the people's vows pray for along with me.

Naso, sad, greets in verse from the Euxine waters Graecinus, whom present he was wont to greet with his voice. This is the exile's voice: the letter lends me a tongue, and if it were not allowed to write, I should be dumb. You reprove, as you ought, the sins of a foolish comrade, and teach me that I bear ills less than my deserts. You speak truly, but late, the reproaches of my fault: remit the harsh words to a defendant who has confessed. When I could cross Ceraunia with a straight sail, that I might shun the wild rocks, then I should have been warned. Now what does it profit me, the shipwreck once made, to learn by what way my skiff ought to have run? Rather give arms to be grasped by a weary swimmer, and do not be loath to have put your hand beneath his chin. And this you do, and may you do it, I pray. So may your mother and wife, so may your brothers and your whole house be safe, and what you are always wont to pray for in heart and voice, so may you make all your deeds approved by the Caesars. It will be shameful for you to have brought your help in no part to an old friend amid his wretched affairs, shameful to draw back your foot, and not to stand with tenacious step, shameful to have deserted a labouring ship, shameful to follow fortune and yield a friend to it, and, unless he be lucky, to deny that he is yours. Not so did the sons of Strophius and of Agamemnon live, this was not the faith of the son of Aegeus and of Pirithous: whom the former age admired, the next will admire, at whose applause whole theatres resound, you too, having kept a friend through a hard time, are worthy to have your name among such great men, worthy you are, and, since you earn praise by piety, the gratitude for your service will not be deaf. Believe me, if my song is not to be mortal, you will be often on the lips of posterity. Only continue, Graecinus, faithful to the weary, and let that impulse last into long delays, since you grant this, yet I use the oar in a breeze, nor does it hurt to set the spur to a galloping horse.

My letter wishes first that you be greeted, Atticus, sent from the ill-pacified Getae. Next follows the wish to hear how you fare, and whether, whatever you do, you have a care for me. Nor do I doubt that you do, but the very fear of ills often forces me to entertain needless fears, Grant pardon, I pray, and forgive my excessive fear. Even the shipwrecked man shudders at calm waters. The fish, once hurt by the deceiving hook, thinks the curved bronze lurks beneath all food. Often the lamb flees a dog seen far off and thinks it a wolf, and, unknowing, shuns its own protection. Wounded limbs dread even a gentle touch, and an empty shadow strikes fear into the anxious. So I, pierced by Fortune's unjust darts, conceive nothing but sorrow in my breast. Now it is clear to me that the fates, keeping the courses they have begun, will always go by the ways accustomed to them: that the gods watch lest anything befall me kindly, and I scarcely think that Fortune can be cheated of words. She is at pains to ruin me, and she who was wont to be fickle, now harms me, constant and well assured. Believe me, if I am known to you for a truthful mouth (and let me not be thought to make my misfortunes plain), you will sooner number the ears of the Cinyphian crop, and how many thymes flower on high Hybla, and how many birds rest on moving wings in the air, and how many fish swim in the sea, you will be certain, than the sum of my labours be reckoned for you, which I have suffered by land, which I have suffered by water. No nation in the whole world is more savage than the Getae; yet even they groaned at my ills, which, if I should try to write out for you in mindful verse, will be a long page of my fate to come. I do not, then, fear that I should think you to be feared, whose love has given me a thousand pledges, but because every wretch is a timid thing, and because for a long time the door of gladness has been shut to me. Now my grief has come to be a habit, and, as by falling water with frequent stroke the rocks are hollowed, so I am wounded by Fortune's continuous blow, and a new wound scarcely now has room in me. No more is the ploughshare worn thin by constant use, no more is the Appian way rubbed smooth by curved wheels, than my breast is trodden by the old throng of ills, and I have found nothing to bring me help. By the liberal arts glory has been sought by many: unhappy, I have perished by my own gifts. My former life is free of fault and was lived without stain: that brought me, wretched, no help. A grievous fault is often forgiven at the prayers of one's own: all favour was dumb for me. Some are aided in hard times by presence: this exile, absent, a vast storm overwhelmed. Who would not have shuddered even at Caesar's silent anger? Harsh words were added to my punishments. Flight is made lighter by the season. Cast upon the sea, I underwent the threats of Arcturus and the Pleiades, keels are often wont to feel a calm winter: no wave was fiercer to the ship of Ithaca. The upright faith of my companions could have lightened my ills: the treacherous crew was enriched with my spoils. Places make exile gentler: no sadder land than this lies beneath either pole. It is something to be near one's native bounds: the farthest land, the farthest world, holds me. Your laurel, Caesar, grants peace even to exiles: the Pontic land lies beneath a neighbouring foe. It is sweet to spend time in tilling the fields: the barbarian enemy does not suffer the soil to be turned. Body and mind are aided by the mildness of the sky: with perpetual cold the Sarmatian shore is stiff. There is in fresh water a pleasure not to be envied: a marsh mixed with sea-salt is drunk here. All things fail. Yet the mind conquers all: it makes even the body have strength, that you may bear the burden, you must strive with full effort, or, if you let your sinews be bent, you will fall; and hope too, that the prince's anger can grow mild with delay, keeps me from being unwilling to live, and from failing. And you, the few who give me no small comfort, whose faith has been tested through my ills, keep what you have begun, I pray, and do not desert the ship at sea, and save me at once and your own judgment.

Caesar with Caesar has lately been restored to me, the gods which you, Maximus Cotta, sent to me; and that your gift might have the number it owes, Livia is there joined to her own Caesars. Fortunate silver, more blessed than any gold, which, though it was but rude metal in value, now has a deity. You could not, by giving me riches, have given greater things, sending three of the heavenly ones before my eyes. It is something to look upon the gods and to think them present, and as if to be able to speak with the true deity. As far as concerns you, I have returned, nor does the farthest land hold me, and, as before, safe, I tarry in the heart of the city. I see the faces of the Caesars, as before I used to see them: there was scarcely any hope of this wish for me; and, as I used to salute the heavenly deity, I salute them. For one restored you have, I think, nothing greater to give, What is lacking to my eyes but the Palatine alone? Which place, Caesar taken away, will be worthless. When I gaze on this, I seem to myself to behold Rome; for it bears the likeness of its own homeland. Am I deceived, or are the faces in the image angry with me, and has the grim form something of one who threatens? Spare me, man greater in virtues than the immense world, and check the just reins of your vengeance. Spare me, I pray, indelible glory of our age, whom your care makes lord of the lands. By the name of your homeland, which is dearer to you than yourself, by the gods never deaf to your vows, and by the partner of your bed, who alone has been found your equal, and to whom your majesty is no burden, and by your son, like you in the image of valour, who by his character can be known to be yours, and by your grandsons, worthy of their grandfather or their father, who advance with great stride by your commands, lighten our punishment by the smallest part and lessen it, and grant a place far from the Scythian foe. And may your deity too, if it is right, Caesar nearest after Caesar, not be unfriendly to my prayers. So may fierce Germany, with frightened face, soon be borne, captive, before your triumphant horses: so may your father live to Pylian, your mother to Cumaean years, and may you long be able to be a son. You too, bride matching your mighty husband, receive the prayers of a suppliant with no harsh ear. So may your husband be safe, so may you have grandsons with offspring, and from your good daughters-in-law what daughters-in-law have borne, so may Drusus, whom dread Germany snatched from you, have been the only doomed part of your childbearing. So may your son, the purple avenger of his brother's funeral, press on betimes on snow-white horses. Grant assent, oh, gentlest deities, to my timid vows. Let it profit something to have gods at hand. At Caesar's coming the gladiator leaves the arena safe, and his face has no slight aid. We too rejoice that, as far as is allowed, we see your faces, that one house has been entered by three of the heavenly ones, happy those who behold not images but the persons themselves, and who see the true bodies of the gods face to face, since this an unprofitable fate has begrudged me, I honour the faces and likeness that art has given. So men have come to know the gods, whom the high air hides, and the form of Jove is worshipped in place of Jove, in short, you who are with me and will be without end, take care that your figure not be in a hated place. For my head will sooner depart from my neck, and I will suffer the light to leave my dug-out eyes, than I be without you, O public deities, snatched from me: you will be the harbour and altar of my flight. You I will embrace, if I am hemmed by Getic arms, and I will follow you as my eagles, as my standards, either I deceive myself and am mocked by too much desire, or the hope of a more favourable exile is at hand. For less and less sad is the face in the image, and the lips seemed to assent to my words. May the forebodings of my timid mind become true, I pray, and may the god's anger, just though it is, be less.

Royal offspring, whose origin of nobility reaches in name all the way to Eumolpus, Cotys, if now the talkative rumour has come to your ears, that I lie in a part of the soil bordering on yours, hear, gentlest of young men, the voice of a suppliant, and bring to a fugitive (for you can) what help you can. Fortune handed me over to you—and that is what I do not complain of— in this one thing not unfriendly to me. Receive my shipwreck on no harsh shore, that the wave may not have been safer than your land. A royal thing it is, believe me, to succour the fallen, and it befits a man as great as you yourself are. This becomes that fortune of yours: which, though it be the greatest, can yet scarcely be equal to your spirit. Power is never beheld in a better light than as often as it does not let prayers be in vain, this that splendour of your lineage demands, this is the work of a nobility sprung from the gods. This both Eumolpus, the most famous founder of your line, and, before Eumolpus, Erichthonius urges upon you. This you have in common with a god, that both, when entreated, are wont to bring help to your suppliants. Will there be any reason why we should deem the deities worthy of accustomed honour, if you take from the gods the will to help? If Jupiter offered deaf ears to one who prayed, why should the victim fall, smitten, before Jove's temple? If the sea granted me no peace as I went, why should I bring fruitless incense to Neptune? If she cheated the vain vows of the labouring husbandman, why should pregnant Ceres receive the entrails of a sow? Nor will the goat give its throat as victim to unshorn Bacchus, if no new wine flow beneath the pressing foot. We pray that Caesar may govern the reins of empire, because he so well takes counsel for his own homeland. Usefulness, then, makes both men and gods great, favouring also with their aids. You too, see that you help one who lies within your camp, O Cotys, offspring worthy of your parent. It is a pleasure befitting a man to save a man, and by no art is favour better sought. Who does not curse Antiphates the Laestrygonian? Or who disapproves the ways of bountiful Alcinous? You have no father like the man of Cassandrea or of the Pheraean race, or him who roasted the inventor by his own art: but as fierce in war and not to be conquered in arms, so, peace once made, never a lover of blood, add that to have faithfully learned the liberal arts softens the character and does not let it be wild, nor is any of kings more equipped by them, or has given more time to gentle studies. Your poems attest it, which, if you take away your name, I would deny a Thracian youth composed; and that under this region Orpheus may not be the only bard, the Bistonian land is proud of your talent. And as you have spirit, when the matter so demands, to take up arms and steep your hand in an enemy's slaughter, and as you are skilled to hurl the javelin from a swung arm and to bend the neck of a swift horse, so, when due time has been given to your father's pursuits, and the work has by chance rested in its own numbers, that your leisure may not waste away in idle slumbers, you stretch a full road toward the shining stars. This too brings me some bond with you: each of us is a worshipper of the same sacred rite. As bard to bard I stretch out arms in entreaty, that your land be faithful to my exile. I came not, guilty of murder, to the shores of Pontus, nor were dire poisons mixed by my hand: nor was my seal-stone convicted of having set a lying mark upon a forged tablet. Nor did I do anything which the law forbids me to commit: yet a fault graver than these must be confessed by me. And lest you ask what it is, I wrote a foolish Art; this forbids my hands to be guiltless. Whether I have sinned besides, do not seek to ask, that my fault may lie hidden beneath the Art alone. Whatever it is, it found the avenger's anger moderate, who took from me nothing but my native soil, and since I lack this, let your nearness now grant that I may be able to be safe in a hated place.

Do you recognize, from the image of the pressed wax, that Naso writes these words to you, Macer? And if the seal-ring is not the token of its author, is the letter known to have been made by my hand? Or does the lapse of time take from you the knowledge of these, and do your eyes not recall the old signs? Though you have forgotten both gem and hand alike, let only your care for me not have fallen from you. This you owe either to our companionship of long years, or because my wife is not a stranger to you, or to the studies which you have used more wisely than I, and, as is fitting, were made guilty by no Art. You sing of whatever was left to eternal Homer, that the Trojan wars may not lack a finishing hand. Naso, too little prudent, while he hands down the art of loving, has the sad reward of his teaching, the master. Yet there are sacred rites in common among poets, though each of us follows a different path: of these I suspect you to be mindful, though we are far apart, and to wish to lighten my misfortunes. With you as guide I beheld the magnificent cities of Asia: Trinacria was seen by my eyes with you as guide. We saw the sky grow bright with Aetnaean flame, which the Giant set beneath the mountain vomits from his mouth, and the Hennaean lakes and the pools of stinking Palicus, and where Anapus mingles Cyane with his waters. And not far from here the nymph who, while she fled the Elean stream, runs even now beneath the sea's surface, hidden. Here a great part of the passing year was spent by me. Alas, how unlike to the Getae is that place! And how small a part are these of the things we both saw, when you made the roads pleasant for me! Whether in a painted boat we furrowed the dark-blue waves, or the chariot bore us on a nimble wheel, often the way seemed short to us by turns of talk, and the words, if you should count them, were more than the steps, often the day was shorter than our talk, and the slow hour fell short for talking through the summer days. It is something to have feared together the perils of the sea, and to have brought joint vows to the gods of the deep. And now to have managed affairs together, now again from those of which one need not be ashamed, to be able to recount our jests, when these come to your mind, though I be absent, in all the years I shall be before your eyes, as just now seen. I myself indeed, though I am beneath the world's hinge, which always stands higher than the flowing waters, yet behold you with the only heart with which I can, and often talk with you beneath the icy axis, here you are, and know it not, and present, most thronged, while absent, and at my bidding you come from the heart of the city to the Getae. Repay me in turn, and, since that region is more fortunate, hold me there always in a mindful heart.

This work, Rufus, Naso, founder of an ill-starred Art, sends to you, hurried in a brief space of time, that, although we are removed far by the whole world's width, you may yet be able to know that we remember you. Forgetfulness of my own name will come to me sooner than your piety be driven from my breast: and I shall give back this soul into the empty airs sooner than the gratitude for your service become vain. A great service I call the tears with which you wetted your face when mine were dry with hardened grief: a great service I call the consolations of a mournful mind, when you gave them to me and to yourself alike, my wife indeed is praiseworthy of herself and on her own account, yet she is made better by your counsel. For what Castor was to Hermione, what Hector to Iulus, this I rejoice that you are to my wife. She strives that she may not be unlike you in probity, and proves herself to be of your blood by her life, therefore what she would have done without any goads, she does more fully, having found you too as her prompter, and the horse, keen and ready of itself to run for the honours of the palm, yet, if you urge it on, will go more bravely, add that you fulfil the charges of one absent with faithful care, and grudge to bear no burden. Oh, may the gods repay you thanks, since we ourselves cannot, who will repay if they see dutiful deeds; and may your body too long suffice for that character, Rufus, the greatest glory of the Fundanian soil.